Chemical Conversion of Pigment of Monascus purpureus to Water Soluble Pigment

The microbial pigments are useful as biocolour as they are safe. But the biocolour produced, most of the times, are insoluble water so cannot be used in food products and the pigment was produced using solid state fermentation on a medium with rice grits, apple pomace or combination, glucose monosodium glutamate and magnesium sulphate. The pH of the medium used was 6.0 and a temperature of 30°C was used for incubators. Results of investigation carried out on the conversion of biocolour produced by Monascus purpureus MTCC 410 under incubation solid state conditions, into water soluble pigment are reported here. The dried culture medium was used and the pigment was extracted using hexane, ethanol, methanol, petroleum ether, acetone and water. It was found that maximum conversion took place using amino glutamic acid (72%) in comparison to amino acetic (58.0%) acid and gelatin (64.0%). The optimum pH of conversion was found to be 9.2.